


Dear Vienna

by revolver



Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nakama, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/pseuds/revolver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, there's still option C, to decline to make any change at all. Ky attempted to take it, when coming to terms with his feelings towards pirates and Johnny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Vienna

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/gifts).



> Disclaimers: Playing fast and loose with medical procedures and anatomy, and knowingly so. Apologies, but for such a ridiculous series, I feel like it's fair enough that if someone can take these kinds of beatings, they can also handle some serious blood loss and head trauma. Likely set during the GGX2 timeline. Cheers, buds!

There had been a reason Ky had trusted Johnny with Dizzy's safety. He wasn't one to take the concept of _family_ lightly. Neither of them were. There were days... well, Ky didn't want to go in that direction. Johnny, for all of his merits, was an outlaw. It was just best to limit their contact. That had been the decision that Ky had made. He was bound, obligated to either bring Johnny in, or acknowledge that he was turning a blind eye. Ky didn't want to be put into that track. It lead to moral decisions that he didn't feel qualified to or want to make. It was mostly the wanting, he had to admit after a certain point.

In every encounter, he had fought Johnny. It was out of duty, he supposed, though Johnny was reckless and easygoing enough to not seem to mind. Meet with Ky, fight with Ky, run off while they were licking their wounds, and the Mayship went on its course. Johnny knew - at least, hoped - Ky wasn't fighting to kill. Neither was he. Especially not with Dizzy watching nervously from the sidelines. He could catch her eyes on them both, and May's on him.

The trouble, of course, in fighting with edged weapons and lightning is that nothing, no matter how much they don't _want_ to see each other injured too badly, is so harmless as to make up for a movement too harsh, and when Ky takes a sword stroke to the chest- well, even if Dizzy hadn't demanded that they take him along, Johnny supposed he would have done it himself. He couldn't leave someone he bore no ill will towards to die alone out here. So, Ky had a room, a couple of the girls bunked together temporarily, and Johnny shouldn't have been surprised to see how attentive Dizzy was towards their guest.

It was on Johnny's watch, though, that Ky woke up.

He wasn't surprised when the knight tried to attack him, ripping out all the painstakingly-put-in stitches. Johnny just tutted him, shoved him back down to the bed, and had a brief moment of wishing that bald doctor was around, May's loathing of him notwithstanding.

"Now look at that..." he said with a wry smile before clocking him over the head and calling one of his girls back in to sew him back up. "Maybe we'll evaluate the situation first, master tactician!"

Ky didn't respond, unconscious as he was. Johnny hoped it got through to his subconscious.

"Is he going to be all right?" May asked from where she'd been peeking through the door.

Johnny chuckled over the scent of blood. "Eh, he's been through much more! It's just a scratch for him. Now if he'll just stop trying to kill me long enough to let it stay so!"

He heard a little gasp from behind May and smiled, but didn't acknowledge Dizzy. He knew that she didn't want him to.

Hours passed, and fresh, clean bandages covered Ky's chest. Johnny wondered if he would be unahappy with the indecency of it all, shirtless around all of these beautiful women. He was definitely nothing to snub. The faint red tinging the bandages just made him a bit moreso, though Johnny didn't want the ship to use up all of the thread it had on him.

Now, he was watched for signs of movement around the clock, and as much as possible by the girls as Johnny could persuade himself into. Ky wouldn't just go attacking a random woman, he supposed.

It was just his luck, though, that it was again on his shift. He was ready this time, though, to shove Ky down by the shoulder. Both shoulders after a moment, ignoring the screaming in French. At least some of it had to be dealing with the indecency of being handled this way by a man. Well, Ky's repressed ass could deal with it, and Johnny told him so in many more words.

He settled down after a moment. "Ah, better now that you're not trying to kill the guy who saved your life!"

Ky exhaled hard, didn't speak for a moment. Johnny was well aware that he didn't trust his voice right then - not with the pain coursing through him. When he finally did, his voice was wobbly. "You should have left me. The Holy Knights would have found me."

"Not before you went and bled out. You're a good rival, and it would have hurt Dizzy too much to see you go," Johnny said. His hand moved from Ky's shoulder at last, moved to rub at his own neck.

Ky didn't say anything to that. The discomfort would have been audible, had it not been completely silent.

"Now then, if you'll be a good patient and rest before I have to track down Doctor Baldie, I'll step out for a moment and get you something to eat. You can do that?"

Ky managed a weak smile. "Don't do that," he said. "I won't move."

"Good! I'll bring something back!" Johnny said. He was gone with a rustle of fabric, and Ky lay still, staring at the ceiling and the bulkhead coursing through it like a vein.

Well, this was where his playing around had gotten him. Under the care of the man he was supposed to bring in, could have brought in if he'd been less distracted with his own feelings of admiration. Admiration for an outlaw. He should be court-martialed. And how could he explain this? He could fabricate, say that he'd been taken captive, but the knights would certainly go after Johnny for such a thing, and Ky didn't want- He could say it was about the girls, that he didn't want any of them to find other lives, but Ky wasn't given to falsehoods. It was as much about Johnny as it was about his family. Ky couldn't go breaking up a family, but there was more to it.

When Johnny returned with a steaming bowl of soup and Ky could smell the strong, warm odor of the fish and salt in it, he still hadn't moved, true to his word.

Johnny chuckled, set it down on a side table. "Well, let's get you up," he said, leaning in. It was a slow process, moving carefully, being wary of the stitches, and Johnny pretending not to see the pain evident on Ky's face.

Ky just focused on breathing. Breathing, and Johnny, and the scent of that soup. What felt like ages only took a minute, maybe two, but once Ky was upright, he exhaled heavily, then winced with a grim smile. He felt he should have expected that one.

"Now then... can you feed yourself or should I-" Johnny cut himself off before finishing- "nevermind, not like that you can't!" He chuckled, spooned a bit of the soup and blew on it softly.

It would go against Ky's nature to act baffled or unhappy with the act, but still- He did feel it was too much... he could have endured.

"Johnny, I-" he began, but he was presented with a spoonful of warm soup.

"Ah ah! I won't have you making me bring my girls up here to fix you up again!"

Ky couldn't help but smile faintly at that. So practical.

He sipped at it for a brief second before realizing that Johnny had cooled it down just perfectly, taking it in his mouth. So it went for the next while, and Ky was having to kick his pride aside, deal with this being taken care of business. Once it was over and Johnny helped him lie back down, he acquiesed to sleeping more like a good patient. After all, he reasoned, the sooner he was recovered, the sooner he could get back off of this ship, disavow the pirates-

Well, get off the ship and get back to the Holy Knights, at least.

Days passed, and finally, restless, Ky slunk from his room as though he was infiltrating an enemy base. Johnny found him on the deck, barely avoiding being blown over by virtue of clinging to the railing.

"You can never do it the easy way," he muttered, taking in the too-pale skin and the faint stain on white bandages, visible through Ky's undone jacket. "Get back in here before your pride makes me carry you back," he said.

Ky turned his head slightly. "Would you?"

Johnny chuckled, unsure of what he meant by that. "You can't make it back on your own, can you?"

Ky didn't reply, just kept staring out across the rapidly-approaching distance.

"Well!" Johnny said with a bit of a sigh, more theatrical than it needed be.

Ky gasped at being picked up.

"I told you not to make me," Johnny said, shrugging as much as Ky- lighter than he'd anticipated, at least- would let him.

"I didn't tell you to!" Ky exclaimed. "I can make it back!"

Johnny set him back down. "Fine, then! Back to your room! The air's too thin out here for you!"

Ky's hand moved to the railing, using it to guide him back to the stairs, where he hesitated, but started down carefully. Johnny was right behind him, hand nearly to him, but never touching. Just in case of a stumble that never happened.

A week had Ky moving better, if stiffly. Johnny had just settled into the chair by his bedside, books in hand. "Though you'd enjoy," he said.

Ky nodded, taking them with much more mobility in his arm than before. "I think I may be leaving, soon," he said.

"The girls will be sad for that. I think they've enjoyed your being here." The way Johnny said it... Ky did have to wonder.

"The girls?" he asked, raising a brow.

Johnny laughed. "Well... and someone else, maybe."

Ky nearly caught that laugh as well, but his eyes went serious. "Johnny..." he said softly, voice cautious.

"Ah, it's nothing!"

While he wasn't convinced, letting it lie was easier than facing the possible truth of the matter. Ky, for once, chose the easy way out.

"Then you really are..." Johnny said as Ky set those books to the side.

"Seems so." Ky left out all of the ambiguity that he'd wanted to put in.

"Well, I'll bring it to ground, let you on off, and you're just glad to have escaped with your life," Johnny chuckled.

Ky bit his lip. "It would be for the best."

Hours later and Ky was in a clean, sterile hospital bed and attended by his men. The easy way, he supposed, wasn't always the best way.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta Kitty, who had the patience to deal with the drunken email asking for her services in this.


End file.
